OK...so I'm talking knives with a local sort of celebrity chef and my wife comes home, grabs the car seat and out to P/U daughter and grand daughter for a shopping adventure. I can miss this..no problem. We talk knives for another 2hrs. Hunger sets in. What mischief can I get into since the "wife's away the boys will play?" SUSHI...yea that's the ticket...never done it before...what the hell...I'm 51...can handle it...you know raw smelly fish and all. Besides I have James to walk me through it and I'm sure Mr. Lee won't mind another C note on the day. So I grab some cash and off we go. Get to Mr. Lee's place and OH crap he is still closed 2:30-4:30pm. We get there at 3:00 pull on the door handle and it opens. NO MAN they are closed...no lights on, no one here, what if the alarm goes off??? Come on let's go...do it another time. OOOOOOHHHHH but then here comes Mrs. Lee......"come in, nice to see you, where is your wife, who is this...YADDA YADDAAA YYYYAAAADDDDAAAA. Damit man I can't turn back now!!! A couple of hello bows and a hug and off we go to my favorite table. Then I tell her we want to sit at the sushi bar and I am going to have sushi for the first time. I am so thankful there is no one else in the store...don't want to embarass myself by fumbling with those chop sticks. they just don't work for me!!! Just give me a friggin forknknife. So, here comes Mr. Lee with sh_t eating grin on his face..."here to have sushi?" Yes sir.

I guess y'all can sort of picture what comes next.

YUP...just like every other dummer to try it the first time with all those preconceived ideas of bite then barf...OH wait...hold it back till you run to the restroom and wasabi burning your face off not to mention food flying off the chopsticks and saki coming out your nose I was totally WRONG. First my saki arrives WARM. Who drinks an alcoholic beverage warm....OH YEA Remy Martin with Arturo Fuente...OK I'll try warm rice wine...pretty darn GOOD. Then Mr. Lee comes out from behind the glass and coaches me on how to hold chop sticks.....I get it...after he yells RELAX YOUR HAND!!! Then he shows me how to set up the condiments, pickled ginger, wasabi (looks like snot out of Ghost Busters), dark and light soy. Drink more saki. Here comes round one.....chop sticks ready, Check...wasabi soy mud ready, Check,......water ready (wash it down fast) Check, ...napkin ready (just in case water idea doesn't work) CHECK. 1st serving looks like crab stuffed jalapenos with little golden and black bb's on top. James says WOW. Ok he's impressed, it's gotta be good....JUST PICK IT UP, DUNK IT IN THE MUD AND BITE IT...done. :hungry: WHOA that was REALLY GOOD!!!! No joking...not at all like sex the first time. Then I had to ASK what it was made up of...(*^$%%*^%$$%$%^&%) and caviar on top....OH the little gold and black BB's...CCCOOOLLLLL. There is 3 of these for each of us. Tried to dissect and taste it all seperately.....didn't work so well, BUT, I did like the snap and flavor of the fish eggs. MORE SAKI. Do a little daikon radish, pickled ginger and water...OH NO saki as a pallette cleanser. Here comes round 2. Looked like a coconut log with shrimp tails sticking out each end. 5 pieces each, I have no idea what was in there but shrimp and avocado -- but it was GREAT. OK...saki, ginger, water...ready for round 3. OH by the way, each round came with a little hand carved scenery......carrot butterfly on a flower, hummingbird in a flower, swan on a pond, racoon on a bridge....I forget them all now....blame the saki. :tooth:

We had a total of seven rounds with an apple carved into a roadrunner with orange and cucumber cacti for dessert....WAY TOO COOL!!!!!

So at the end of about 2 hours I now know how to use chopsticks, mix wasabi soy mud, cleanse pallette, and enjoy the next round. It was also really cool to see someone in real life using those techniques in the videos by Japanese Knife Society. This was one really great adventure!!!

Thanks for reading all this babbling BS but I just had to get this one out. Now off to impress my Sushi Afficionado daughter....I even have custom chop sticks a customer from Indonesia sent us. Now I can use them too. :happymug:

knyfeknerd

04-21-2012, 01:23 AM

Consider your cherry "popped"!

Crothcipt

04-21-2012, 01:33 AM

you will never look at fish and a pair of chop sticks the same.:drool:

RobinW

04-21-2012, 09:06 AM

Cool story!

Pabloz

04-21-2012, 09:16 AM

you will never look at fish and a pair of chop sticks the same.:drool:

I am actually looking forward to the next one because Mr. Lee said he has some really great twists on the "Spicy Tuna" roll.

ajhuff

04-21-2012, 09:23 AM

Pretty cool! I do sushi wrong but I have never been to a place as nice as that. I don't use any condiments or at least rarely. I like them, love wasabi and soy sauce, but I prefer the pure flavors of the roll. My attitude is that if it was supposed to have a condiment the Chef would have dressed it for me.

-AJ

DeepCSweede

04-21-2012, 09:35 AM

Congrats on the cherry pop - i had a friend from Japan that made it in college and i am eternally grateful to him for turning me on to it.

Eamon Burke

04-21-2012, 09:53 AM

A live animal will has never looked so close to dinner. When I watch nature shows about the sea, they make me hungry.

Congrats on discovering the best flavor-bang-for-the-buck in the food biz!

tk59

04-21-2012, 10:23 AM

I wasn't sure what to expect when I clicked on this thread, lol. Congratulations on taking a big step into the unknown and surviving! :)

Pabloz

04-21-2012, 10:27 AM

A live animal will has never looked so close to dinner. When I watch nature shows about the sea, they make me hungry.

Congrats on discovering the best flavor-bang-for-the-buck in the food biz!

Eamon,
I'd sure like to try some of your work as I'm sure it will have a Texas twist to it...how about Brisket, Ribeye, pulled pork, left over baby backs, Chappel Hill kilbasa...any of that work???? NOPALES, green chili and purslane???

Eamon Burke

04-21-2012, 10:35 AM

Haha actually the beef sushi I've had has all been shockingly bad. And don't ever put parsley on unagi.

heirkb

04-21-2012, 10:37 PM

Haha actually the beef sushi I've had has all been shockingly bad. And don't ever put parsley on unagi.

I had raw wagyu nigiri at Morimoto once, and it was really tasty.

Eamon Burke

04-21-2012, 10:42 PM

Never had raw beef sushi, only cooked. I bet I would love it, I love the flavor of raw beef.

DeepCSweede

04-22-2012, 07:25 AM

I bet the salty crunch of tobiko would be good with raw beef maybe w a touch of eel sauce.

DwarvenChef

04-23-2012, 03:13 AM

Outstanding, I remember my first experience with sushi, after years of bad mouthing it... Ya my wife was sooo proud of me for admiting I was a screw up :p

Taz575

04-24-2012, 05:29 AM

Never had true Sushi. Closest I came was eating some raw tuna on the boat while I was cutting it up after it cooled a few hours after catching it. Just tasted like mush, no flavor. I think if I was going to try it, I would go some place where it is done right. Ditto on the chop sticks, no clue how to use them at all!

TB_London

04-24-2012, 06:57 AM

When I got back from Japan I didn't eat any sushi for about 3 months as I wanted to remember how good it was for as long as possible